Meanwhile, Russian parliament passed some more horrible laws this week.

Publicly disrespecting religion or offending religious feelings of believers is a crime that can now land you in jail for several years. So can telling conflicted teenagers that it's OK to be gay, or playing Freddy Mercury's music videos on TV.

Oh, and there's a bill coming up that will legally redefine family as "man and woman with no fewer than three children, and their elderly parents, all living together in a single apartment". It is expected to pass and come into effect before the end of the year.

Passionario wrote:Oh, and there's a bill coming up that will legally redefine family as "man and woman with no fewer than three children, and their elderly parents, all living together in a single apartment".

...so a man and a woman, with 1 child, and no elderly parents living with them, in a single apartment...is no longer family?

Am I reading that right?

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Amirya wrote:...so a man and a woman, with 1 child, and no elderly parents living with them, in a single apartment...is no longer family?

Pretty much. To start with, these man and woman will no longer be eligible for any perks or bonuses available to families (in particular, they will not be placed in queue for housing) until they conform to the requirements. If they persist, they'll be hit with increasing fines and taxes until they conform.

Further plans for family-related legislation from now to 2025 include creating heavy taxes on divorces, placing severe limitations on abortions, instituting fines for having homosexual relationships and childbirths out of wedlock and making church weddings mandatory.

Of course, the author and chief proponent of this madness lives by herself in a huge mansion, while her only son lives in Belgium where he works for a pro-LGBT organization. When journalists pointed that ironic little tidbit out, she denounced them as 'homosexual pedophile lobbyists'.

So if you are conforming to the required standards, and then your elderly parents die because, well, they're old...you are suddenly no longer family?

fuzzygeek wrote:What the fuck, Russia.

Because it bears repeating.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Philosophers, historians, writers, sociologists and other great minds have been pondering that question for centuries. My preferred hypothesis is that Russia always had a 'culture of honor' (as opposed to the 'culture of law' prevalent in modern Western democracies).

The culture of honor seems to fit. The "lack of resources" could be argued otherwise but if you think about it, it still applies. Twenty to fifty years ago, many of Russia's natural resources were locked down due to the harsh climates. Now those resources are locked down because free enterprise is essentially shunned and you have an oligopoly stifling capital investment.

Some of you probably heardwhat's going on here in Brazil. By and large corruption's a huge deal, and it's a cultural thing as much as a political thing. Those of you that have played free online games with large Brazilian populations probably had a taste of it already. Just shift the dickery towards trickery and you'll have a good idea, but here I'll focus on the political issues.For example, things like politicians owning the companies that will sell products to the offices, with inflated budgets is normal. To give a sense of scale on these phony budgets, in my time as a service desk tech for the ministry of environment (one with a relatively low budget and most corruption is on the field rather than the offices) I tested a few laptop models for a nearby batch purchase. Most models costed 400 to 600 dollars and would be purchased for around 13000 reais. Roughly 7k dollars. And when I called bullshit it was treated as a small issue, and culminated on me losing that job.

About 25% of salaries are taxed. Around 60% of most goods are also tax. Imported goods are taxed a deal more. Little of this translates into public services, and the government takes far too many populist measures (almost everyone sees the welfare system crashing everything in a near future).

Just this week the Human Rights Committee approved one instance of a project that removes the prohibition from shrinks to treat homosexuality.

So. Enough people are pissed off at these things, but by and large no one mobilized about it. This changed when the last few measures by the government caused protests that very quickly escalated into national levels, at which point abuse of force happened and sparked even more protesters. Gatherings of these levels haven't happened in 20 or so years, when a president was deposed.

Right now things are heating up more and more, but thankfully seems to be more peaceful. I participated in two of those mobilizations and like what I'm seeing...but I'm worried because there's a lack of focus. The mob wants far too many things to want anything.

As a business, I have considered removing Brazil from my list of Countries that I will ship to.

EVERY transaction I have had in the past 12 months with a customer from Brazil has included them wanting me to mark the package as a gift. They don't want to pay for the Import Customs Duties. I can firmly say every single transaction, as it came up in the meeting when we were reviewing several countries that we may not ship to anymore. I went back and checked. Just over 50 sales in 12 months to Brazil. All of them requesting the same thing. All of them getting mad when I said that I couldn't, because I wasn't putting my very expensive Exporting License on the line over what has amounted to ~$2500 in sales.

On top of that, We have about a 25% loss of product when it goes through Brazil Customs. My tracking information shows it reaches Customs, and then no further. this problem, is a HUGE problem, and it has actually caused other online businesses to alter their policies because of it. Brazil doesn't honor Insurance Claims on International items. Because of this, several prominent online selling venues have changed Brazil to a "proof of shipment" is enough to fulfill the obligation of the seller.

I knew that some of it was a culture thing, and figured based on the problems with customs, that it was a governmental issue as well, but to hear it the way you have presented it, is a little surprising. How the country is still maintaining some level of "operations" after at least a decade of it (I've been in e-commerce for 13 years, and it's always been this way) is astounding.

Shoju wrote:As a business, I have considered removing Brazil from my list of Countries that I will ship to.

EVERY transaction I have had in the past 12 months with a customer from Brazil has included them wanting me to mark the package as a gift. They don't want to pay for the Import Customs Duties.

It's pretty heavy. Except for books just about everything is taxed a little over 55% of the market + shipping price, usually closer to the 60% mark. And then another 12% on top of the final value.They tax shipping. This particular bit astounds me a good deal still today.

And if you look for a manual on how these taxes are charged, you won't find anything decent over here, not even in the government sites or telephones. Fedex explains Brazil's customs rules better than Brazil.

Shoju wrote:As a business, I have considered removing Brazil from my list of Countries that I will ship to.

EVERY transaction I have had in the past 12 months with a customer from Brazil has included them wanting me to mark the package as a gift. They don't want to pay for the Import Customs Duties.

It's pretty heavy. Except for books just about everything is taxed a little over 55% of the market + shipping price, usually closer to the 60% mark. And then another 12% on top of the final value.They tax shipping. This particular bit astounds me a good deal still today.

And if you look for a manual on how these taxes are charged, you won't find anything decent over here, not even in the government sites or telephones. Fedex explains Brazil's customs rules better than Brazil.

Taxing shipping isn't surprising to me.

I live on Ohio. If you live in Ohio, and purchase soemthing from me, I have to charge you sales tax on the price of the item + shipping. Now, if you live outside of Ohio, I don't have to charge you jack in shipping.

It's a sad state that it's gotten so bad with bureaucracy there. I have a small, dedicated group of buyers in Brazil. I've been wondering how their businesses will fair in the coming craziness.

I have one guy that actually has his engines Argentina, and then has some way he brings them in from there, just to make sure that they make it through customs. He lost ~$150 bucks on a small engine (meant for a bicycle) that Customs...> "Lost"

Things are getting crazier by the minute. Protests are breaking records, and in Rio there's a visible tension as, apparently, a neonazist group is leading attempts to hurt Left party supporters.The whole thing is rather absurd to me, because 1) This isn't really a partidary riot, so there's no point in trying leverage with/against parties. and 2) Why the fuck do people here bother with nazism? All moral quandaries aside, the WASP archetype by definition is against latins <.<

There's a very poetic irony going on right now...The president Dilma, an old-time revolutionary for the people, against the military dictatorship...is being protected by the army. From the people.

To be fair, nazism was only peripherally about racial superiority, thats just the part that stuck out for history, because you can't vilify the core (as easily), as thats just another political viewpoint (nationalism and socialism respectively, mashed together - and nationalism was the order of the day in the "in between" years for most of europe (and the US too)